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Back to School Part 2 – When Good Kids Get A Bad Cold

If you think it is hard to drive away and leave your son or daughter at college for the first time, just wait until you get home.  You will walk inside your house and no matter how many people live there it will feel empty. 

It is especially empty if it is your last child to leave home.  Suddenly the house feels enormous and you feel small.  You feel miserable and want to cry. 

If you think you feel bad then, just wait until they call you sick with their first away-from-home really bad cold.  Now you really feel bad.

When your kids were small and had a cold, you babied them.  Ran vaporizers to help them breathe, sponged them off the reduce their fever, read them stories, and feed them chicken soup. 

That very first cold after moving away from college will be as miserable for you as it is for your child.  Since you can’t be there to take care of them, plan in advance so that have everything on hand to take care of themselves.  Caring for your own cold is a part of growing up when you think about it.

Bad Cold Emergency Kit
 

So, pack up an emergency kit.  Now the cold emergency kit is a little different than your standard emergency kit. It doesn’t have bandages or antibiotic creams. Those are important items and should be in the standard emergency kit, but what I am talking about is the Cold Emergency Kit. 

So, pack them in a small box that they can store out of the way of heat and sunlight.  In it put what they will need to tend to their own cold.  Start with a small box of tissue.  If you have a preferred brand or type of cold medicine, make sure it is in the kit along with your own handwritten note on how to use it. 

For example, my daughter has always been small for her age, so I never gave her the adult dose of any over-the-counter medication the first time around.  Now, if she bought a box of cold medicine on her own and didn’t know this, she might take the recommended 2 pills instead of 1.  That is why it is important that you communicate this type of information in writing in the emergency kit so if they are self-medicating for the first time they know these things. 

Also, depending on the state where they are going to school, many of the “D” formulas require a signature and an in-state driver’s license for the purchase of formulas that contain pseudoephedrine.  Keep this in mind if your child is attending college in another state! 

I also think it is a good idea to include cough drops or throat lozenges for that sore throat (bonus points if you get the ones with Vitamin C) and a microwaveable “cup o soup” in the flavor your kid prefers and a thermometer. 

The thermometer is important because they need to know when they have a fever that is high enough to warrant the attention of the school’s Health Office. Also, if your kid has allergies, they need to know the difference between cold symptoms and allergy symptoms.

That thermometer comes in handy when determining the two because allergies don’t cause any elevation in body temperature. Tuck in a little love note at the bottom that assures them that a cold runs for 7 to 10 days and you can’t cure it, but they can focus their efforts on relieving symptoms.

You can’t be there with them while they are going through that first cold and as hard as it is on you, it’s an important step in their growth as truly independent adults.

Til Next Time!

 
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Out Damn Spot! Remove Cat Urine

Its transition time in our house.  The youngest daughter is in the process of packing up (again) and getting ready to move out for college (again). It is an exciting time.  When you are starting graduate school, the whole world is ahead of you.  She is going through all the things she has had packed away in storage for the last year to determine if they were really worth dragging half way across the country.

She ran across a pair of khaki pants that had been stained by Mr. Lou, her cat that has been gone for almost two years now.  Ewwwww.  Two year old cat urine! Without saying a word, she placed the pants in the laundry basket, thinking that either the wash could remove cat urine stains or she would just throw the pants away.

I can’t think of any stain worse than male cat urine, locked away for two years, staining a pair of light colored pants.

So, I knew that sodium percarbonate kicks butt on organic stains.  Cat urine is most certainly organic and sodium percarbonate is the top ingredient in Molly’s Suds Oxygen Whitener.  What I didn’t know is if Molly’s Suds can remove cat urine  stain that has been set for so long.  The only way to find out is to try it!

You get the best results from a sodium percarbonate solution when you activate it in the hottest water as possible.  I took about 1 1/2 quarts of hot water out of the tap and decided it wasn’t hot enough.  I popped the plastic container in the microwave and zapped it for two minutes.  That was hot water!  I added 1 ounce of Molly’s Suds and gave it a stir.  In to the hot tub went the stained pants leg.  Of course the solution went to work immediately.

The oxidation was full force with more foaming action than I had ever seen before. I allowed the pants leg to soak until all foaming had stopped (a sign that the oxidation process was complete) and the water cooled.

Eww the water looked really yellow and icky.  With trepidation, I took the pants let out of the soaking solution.  At first glance it looked as if the ENTIRE stain was gone COMPLETELY.  Not sure, I rinsed the garment out in the kitchen sink.  Yup, looks like the entire stain was removed.  Like magic, Molly’s Suds had worked to remove cat urine!

Molly’s Suds had saved the day again.  The old, set in stain was gone, no toxic chemicals had been used.  The air was free from chemical fumes (like with chlorine bleach) and the fabric had not been damaged.

Now there are many oxygen bleach products on the market. Maybe some of them would have been up to the task of removing a set in stain like this cat urine, but I seriously doubt it.  The mass distributed oxygen bleach products make generous use of fillers.  Molly’s Suds Oxygen Whitener does not.  It is a simple solution of sodium percarbonate and soda ash.  That is why just a little goes along way.

So, the pants went through the laundry cycle and were returned to young daughter.  She smiled and said “Thanks Mom”..  I say “Molly’s Suds”

Cheryl

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Atopic Dermatitis, Peanuts, and Genetics

Allergists and immunologists for years have noted the association of skin conditions such as atopic dermatitis and eczema and food allergies, especially allergies to peanuts.  Heredity has also been a suspect in both conditions.  But now there is more than anecdotal evidence.

A large group of researchers working in the United Kingdom, Canada, the Netherlands, and Ireland published their findings last year in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.  They were attempting to identify if the genetic coding for filaggrin is a candidate gene in the etiology of peanut allergy.  Filaggrin is a protein in epithelial cells. You can read the entire article here.  The researchers concluded that FLG null mutations represent a highly significant genetic risk factor for atopic dermatitis and also are the single most significant genetic risk for peanut allergy that has been identified to date.

The reason I am writing about this today is because I just read a post two days ago by a respected allergist that indicated that some food allergies may disappear as a child matures.  He specifically mentioned that this did not apply to peanut allergy. Could it be that the epithelial cells that line the digestive tract are the real culprit?

I’m not a doctor and I don’t have the answers. I do know that if you have peanut allergy or atopic dermatitis researchers are hard at work decoding the causes to find the cure.

Just something to think about….until next time!